Jacqueline Steiner, 94, lyricist for "Charlie on the MTA", has passed away. I have never heard of her, unfortunately, but that Kinston Trio hit from 1959 was perhaps my first introduction to folk after a decade of pop and rock and roll. Before the folk rock of Dylan, CSN(&Y), etc, there was Charlie.

For those not familiar, the song was a light-hearted political protest about a fare increase on the Boston Metropolitan Transit Authority - the MTA. Charlie was short a nickel, and couldn't get off of that train. He never returned, no, he never returned, and his fate is still unlearned. (poor old Charlie) He will ride forever 'neath the streets of Boston. He's the man who never returned.

The Kinston Trio version opens with a 3 part banjo-guitar lick that is sprinkled with dissonant notes, which became instantly recognizable when you heard them again - you knew what was coming.

According to her NYTimes obit, when subway tokens were eliminated from the MTA, and replaced with a scannable card, it was (and still is) know as the CharlieCard. Then governor Mitt Romney joined the Kinston Trio in a rousing chorus to kick off the new card. IMHO, if there is any immortality in this world, Ms Steiner achieved it with Charlie.

I almost mentioned Pete Seeger in the original post, but the Kingston Trio, followed soon after by Peter Paul and Mary were the first folkies I was aware of. I grew up listening to Cousin Brucie Morrow at WABC in NYC. He didn't play a lot of Seeger. :)

I'm old enough to remember paying the nickle upon debarking the train. Here's how it worked: you entered the system in the city (subway) tunnels, paying with a token. Three Green Line trolley branches climbed to street-level service, and you had to pay a 5-cent surcharge for that extra mileage. Not everybody paid--it was unenforceable.

"Charlie's wife goes down to the Sculley Square Station, at quarter past two,And through the open window she hands Charlie a sandwich as the train comes rumbling through!"

Q-1: Why did she hand him a sandwich, instead of a nickle? Considering she had to pay a token to enter the station?

I was just down at Boston City Hall, dubbed "the ugliest building in the country." (Google it.) I found two services I needed with "new, improved" fees. So typical of Taxachusetts: everytime you turn around, a fee, tax, fine or service has been raised.

Standard invitation to RfM-ers to look me up, should you come to Beantown. I'll buy you a Dunkin Donuts Coffee, and show you the sites!

although I didn't realize until just now that it was the Kingston Trio. The radios played it over and over again until our parents were sick of it. Some others from that era were "Tom Dooley," and "Thunder Road."

I just returned from a trip to Las Vegas, including several visits to the SouthPoint casino-hotel on South (WAY South) Las Vegas Blvd. A poster in the elevator lobby states that the Kingston Trio is performing there. Didn't get to see them, but it's nice to know they're still around.Seventy-four isn't that old.

It may be the Kingston Trio, or some group of Kingston + a replacement or something. You can't be sure with these reunion tours, especially when one or more of the originals have died.

Quite a while ago there was a big legal haggle over who was "Jay and the Americans," as there was the original, aging Jay Black with his group; then there were some of the original band who had brought on a replacement lead.

Love that song, and folk songs in general. Thanks for the interesting post. Boston is on my bucket list (come on ole bones, you got to wait to completely fall apart until after I make it there) and Caffiend would love to have a guide and drink.

We turned those old Kingston Trio songs into campfire songs. The songs rhymed, and the lyrics told a story. We could handle the simple harmonies. People played the guitar, banjo, and ukelele.

I grew up in San Francisco Bay Area, and my older brothers were fans of Dave Guard and the Whisky Hill Singers. Joan Baez went to my high school, and she was much older, but we knew all of her songs, too. When I went away to summer camp on the East Coast, everyone knew the same songs there! Those songs pulled us together. I think the MTA song was the only one that was political, that I remember.

I saw that TV show about PP&M. It was fun to sing Mary's part, and sort of belt it out, like she did. "Puff" always made me cry, and the older kids always teased me about that. I was too young to suspect that some of the songs had to do with drugs.